Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.
~Arthur Quiller-Couch, Cambridge lecture in 1914~
How many times at writing conferences, seminars, workshops and coaching have you heard that advice?
A dozen times if not a hundred times at least.
Like a mantra, it’s repeated and repeated and repeated. It has been re-spoken and re-written and then attributed to writers like Faulkner, Wilde, Chesterton and Chekov. Even Stephen King wrote in his book, On Writing, “kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”
In fact, a book coaching client repeated those words to me and I went on a rant. (Sorry!) Here’s why.
First, note that all the sources of that quote or its variation are male. Would women writers phrase the advice in those particularly violent terms, especially now? I don’t think so.
Even though the advice is so common, you’ll hear both male and female writers say it when teaching or handing out writing wisdom.
The purpose of the advice is to keep you from holding onto those bits you’ve written that elevate writing to new heights. The words gleam. The sentences evoke raptures (from you, at least). Really, you’ve taken writing to a whole new level and those bits must simply stay in your essay/story/book. Uh, no…
Because, everything you write, in both fiction and nonfiction, must serve the story and your reader, not your ego and not the craft. The story and your reader. Often, those precious bits need to be removed because it is writing that is too self-conscious, and more of the mind than the heart, more craft than art. They need to come out.
BUT…
We don’t have to murder them. I hate the language and image of that writing cliché.
I prefer a different approach. Something like one of these:
- Honor the words. Years ago I sat in on a workshop by author Dorothy Randall Gray, who suggested that we print out the sentences and paragraphs that didn’t fit the work for one reason or another, and place them in a special container on our writing altars. I loved both the idea of a writing altar and the idea of honoring even the words that didn’t belong.
- Writing Compost. Move them all to a folder on your computer with that label. Here, those words can heat and smolder until they turn into rich soil for another project.
- Look for the other story. Put all the edited bits into one long document and print it off. Perhaps there is a story there separate from the one they came from. Perhaps one meant only for you.
Whatever you do, please don’t do violence to your words. There is definitely enough of that in the world. Remember, it’s by writing those words, after all, that you arrived at all the words that came after them.
Don’t kill your darlings. Honor them. Thank them. Then let them go or give them new life.
And thank your Muse for it all.